


Strays

by TheCrowMaiden



Category: Compilation of Final Fantasy VII, Final Fantasy VII
Genre: Cats, M/M, Mentions the canon death of a major character in the game and you probably know who but just in case, No Smut, One cat does pass away in this fic, Sharing a Bed, Sharing a bed for comfort turning into love, Super quiet and slow fall into love, Touch-Starved, Uses a tiny bit of Advent Children stuff, Vincent is adopted by cats in the basement, Vincent's POV, somewhat canon compliant
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-05-28
Updated: 2019-05-28
Packaged: 2020-03-20 14:48:46
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,904
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/18994774
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/TheCrowMaiden/pseuds/TheCrowMaiden
Summary: Vincent ends up sharing his coffin with Nibelheim's stray cats during his 30 years asleep, and joining AVALANCHE makes him realize he doesn't like sleeping alone anymore. Turns out Cloud can use someone to sleep next to just as much as Vincent does.





	Strays

Neither monsters nor demons mean anything to a cat.

Which just might explain why there is approximately six of them lounging on and around Vincent’s body within his coffin.

Cats that is, not monsters. The monsters know to avoid the room full of boxes, bones and pain—and the short barrel of the Quicksilver. The cats on the other hand see his gun as nothing more than a nuisance they have to climb over, and Vincent himself as nothing to fear. They're right, of course; he would never hurt them. Vincent scratches a soft ear as he listens to the sounds of people approaching, and his mind drifts as he waits.

_He hadn’t known he liked cats, before. Didn’t have time for pets with ShinRa, and probably would have chosen a dog if he’d been given the option. They used to call him guard dog sometimes, if never to his face. So he would have picked one to guard her too. But he’d no more considered a cat than a goldfish when he’d still been a hired gun in a suit._

_How the first stray found him, he didn’t know. He’d left the lid open on his coffin for a reason he cannot remember, and at some point blinked his eyes open to find a small, furry black lump on his leg._

_For a moment, he had honestly thought he was growing some sort of demonic tumour, and reached down to give it a poke. When he did, the yellow-eyed cat lifted its head with a little noise that had Vincent’s heart turning over somewhere deep beneath the leather and belts that gripped his chest. It headbutted his hovering hand and after a pause he stroked it to settle it back to sleep. He had to switch his gun to the other side so he could use it if need be, though. The cat had moulded itself to his hipbone above his holster._

_The next time he woke, there were three cats. The black one was still there, a little taller, a little older. But there was also a tabby with a missing ear and a small orange one that licked his fingers and purred whenever he moved his hand. They scampered about the room whenever he sat up, pouncing on mice and occasionally ganging up on a bat. For the first time in years Vincent left his coffin to search the building, going through the roof of his room. He rigged up some bits and pipes so there was fresh water running down through the basement from rainwater and snowmelt. When he went back to sleep, he had to tuck his gun into the coffin lid so the tabby could snuggle into his side. It purred uproariously whenever he would ever-so-gently scratch its rump with his gauntlet._

_Something he had thought long broken within himself started to stir, and he no longer found himself dreaming as much as before._

_Six was where the number stopped though, six stray cats that draped themselves over him and chewed on his hair and cried when their claws got caught in his cloak until he unhooked and soothed them. He started closing the lid at night after the day a deranged monster broke into the room, claws sinking in next to Vincent’s face and just missing the orange cat. Soon the furry interlopers grew older and slept more, and Vincent slept with them._

When the strangers walk into the basement and knock unafraid on his coffin, he bursts out to take them by surprise while the cats huddle in the bottom corner out of sight. But instead he’s the one surprised by the people he finds. They aren’t afraid. They talk of Sephiroth and Hojo, and saving the Planet. Vincent is more awake and adjusted to his state than when he first went to sleep so many years ago, so he listens, he thinks, and he decides to join them. He’s not sure if it’s for revenge just yet. Settling the score is appealing, but there’s something else pushing him to follow the blond man and his ragtag group.

He lingers behind when the others leave the basement though, and he allows himself to pet the cats one last time. He takes a minute to place the coffin lid in such a way that they’re protected but can still get in and out. These are not the cats he started with, but he will still miss them. He hopes they’ll be there when he’s done.

Vincent doesn’t realize how much he’s grown accustomed to his little clowder until the first night they stay at an inn. His bed is too cold, too big, and too empty. Walls are thin and too far away. The silence is bad but the noises are worse; creaks and groans he doesn’t know, and no twitching whiskers by which to judge the ones he thinks might be a threat. Sleeping on the road is a little different, with everyone close enough where their snores and murmurs lull him to calm if not to sleep. But the inns make his skin crawl, and he grows to loathe the sight of them.

The night after Aerith dies, Vincent half wakes to a familiar warmth. For a moment he thinks he was dreaming of traveling—that it was all a nightmare—and is back in his coffin. The house they're sheltering in is dark and old and feels like home. But it’s not a pile of strays against his side when he turns to look; it’s a man. Cloud is sitting next to him, his back to Vincent’s leg. He could have easily gone to Tifa or Nanaki, but instead is there on Vincent’s bed, staring out the window at the Forgotten Capital that sprawls around them. Maybe he had craved silence, his thoughts loud enough already. Maybe he thought the other man wouldn’t react.

Cloud’s shoulders grow tight when he sees Vincent looking at him, running a hand through his bangs and rubbing at his too-bright blue eyes.

“I’m sorry; I didn’t mean to wake you. I was…I mean…”

Vincent just rolls over, holding the covers up in silent invitation. When Cloud presses into him, Vincent heaves a matching sigh. The shorter man has his forehead against Vincent’s chest, his shoulders lifting and falling in a broken rhythm that slowly evens out as sleep claims him. Vincent had missed this feeling of warmth and breath colouring the night air, and his eyes close. Some of the tension from the horrors of the day bleeds away as they lie there tangled up, and without thinking he nestles his hand into Cloud’s hair and starts petting.

Cloud tries to apologize in the morning, make an excuse that doesn’t need to be made, but Vincent just shrugs. _You reminded me of my cats_ , he says, and Cloud blinks like he’s not sure how to take that. But that night Cloud puts his sleeping bag next to Vincent’s, their backs facing but a body’s width apart. He's stiff and uneasy but he's there. Vincent waits a minute and then shuffles over so their shoulders barely touch, and Cloud melts against him in boneless relief.

It turns into a habit, the two of them sharing a bed at the inn or backs pressed together in the field. Vincent would admit he likes it if anyone thought to ask his opinion.

When they lose Cloud in the Northern Crater, Vincent stops sleeping. He doesn’t even close his eyes. 

It’s somehow worse when they find Cloud in the backwater clinic, only to see he’s in no shape to join them again. Vincent tells himself it’s just the warmth he misses curled around him, and there’s a whole night where he considers going back to Nibelheim. The part of him that woke with the first stray is cold again, and he wants his cats. But it would never do to abandon the others. He needs to help them finish what they started or Mideel and the ShinRa mansion will be destroyed along with the rest of the world. Along with everything living there.

So he takes watch every night, and no one questions his new nocturnal habit.

When Tifa brings Cloud back, really brings him back, Vincent assumes Cloud will find his comfort in her bed now. He tells himself its enough that they’re safe. But when they retire to their rooms on the _Highwind_ , Cloud shows up. It’s dark and he sits on the edge of Vincent’s bed like he had that first night all those weeks ago. He doesn’t need to say anything before Vincent is lifting the covers, welcoming him back and enfolding him in an embrace that’s too tight but that Cloud returns just as hard.

Vincent doesn’t sleep yet, too afraid that Cloud will dissolve if he closes his eyes. So he watches over him that night, and the night after, and the seven after that. He grows a little more secure with every uneventful passing hour, until the peaceful breaths against his neck finally ease him into slumber.

Each day brings another battle and another night tucked against each other to forget it, but it’s not until they finally take down Hojo that Vincent breaks. Shaking in his bed with his arms wrapped around himself instead of Cloud, he barely notices the words whispered against him until Cloud shifts closer and starts stroking Vincent’s hair. It’s clumsy and his sword-calluses keep getting snagged on the mess of tangles that form after a rough fight, but Vincent has never been the one being comforted and he stills under the gentle touch. He remembers the glass tanks in the basement—so close to his own coffin—and he knows he’s not alone. So Vincent rolls over and takes Cloud’s hands in his, pressing one single kiss to a rough knuckle. It’s barely a breath over skin, but Cloud presses one in return to Vincent’s forehead.

When they stand on solid land after Holy and the Lifesteam abates, Vincent almost can’t believe they’re alive. One hand clamps down hard on Cloud’s shoulder, visions of how they almost lost him again crowding his mind. Cloud reaches up and covers Vincent’s hand, squeezes it once, and Vincent slowly lets go.

It takes a while to check on the friends and family of their team members who still have them, and each night Vincent and Cloud fall asleep as soon as they collapse into bed together. But once everyone knows who and what they have left in the world they saved, the group begins to part at last. When Cloud and Tifa drift towards Midgar with Barrett and his daughter, Vincent mentions he needs to go and check on his cats. He doesn’t ask Cloud to go with him to that place, could never ask; and with Marlene pulling on his hand, Cloud doesn’t offer. So Vincent leaves, and he wonders if Cloud feels as strange as he does as they say their subdued goodbyes for the time being.

Nibelheim is abandoned, and the mansion is in even worse shape after Meteor and the Lifestream shook the Planet. It takes a while to get into the basement; there are fewer monsters but more broken walls since his last visit. The cats are still there though, all six of them, and they make a fuss over him as soon as he manages to shoulder aside the broken door to what had once been the only home he knew. They’re thin, and Vincent soon sees why. There are barely even rats left in the mansion, the place picked bare by the employees of ShinRa as they left their little lies behind.

So Vincent gathers up the armful of cats that both are and aren't his, and goes to Cosmo Canyon. He takes them to the vet and has them all given shots and such things until they’re the healthiest they’ve ever been. He sells a couple materia to pay the bills and set the cats up at a foster home. They’re used to his presence just enough that they take to people quite well, and soon he sees five go out to good homes. The last tabby that is too old and set in their ways Vincent takes back to Nibelheim with a great deal of food. They go to the basement together, curl up, and go to sleep; Vincent for only a couple days at a time as he wakes at regular intervals to go buy the cat more food and blankets and everything it could want. He gives it medicine, combs it, pets it constantly. After a year the cat passes on, old and happy and cared for. Vincent buries them out by the mountain, wrapped in the worn velvet lining torn from the coffin.

And then he burns the ShinRa mansion to the ground.

He finds Cloud after that, out by what’s left of Midgar, and Vincent's heart stutters when his friend drops the steel beam he’s carrying to run to him. Cloud jerks to a stop when their eyes meet, dirt scattering as he halts an arm's length away. There's a frozen second that lasts until Vincent lifts his cloak like he used to lift blankets, and Cloud slams forward to hug him as if he could never bear to let go. Tifa is still there, along with Barrett and Marlene, so Vincent helps them around the rebuilt bar that is already pulling in customers. Marlene seems to find him fascinating and Tifa is happy to tease him, and Vincent does his best to nod and shake his head by turns as he carries boxes and washes dishes. They tell him about what their friends are doing since he’s been gone, and when night falls Cloud pulls him into the office where they curl up on the futon meant for one like they’d never been apart.

Lying there, listening to the breathing he’d grown to know and grown to miss, Vincent knows he never wants it to end. Not this time. So when Cloud wakes the next morning, bright-eyed with Mako but not alertness, Vincent touches his cheek. Just one little touch. It lingers there as Vincent opens his mouth to say what he’s been mulling over for months, but somehow it’s Cloud who speaks first.

“Can we keep doing this?” He asks, a little hesitant as he focuses on wrapping loose strands of black hair around his fingers.  

Vincent nods once, twice, and wraps his arms tight around Cloud when he buries his face into Vincent's chest. They stay that way for a while until Cloud sighs. It’s a familiar sigh and he breathes out one more before he sinks into the pillows, calm and nearly asleep.

“…I burned the mansion down,” Vincent says then, voice muffled in Cloud’s hair.

No one else would find it an appropriate comment, but he _knows _that Cloud knows what he means. The kiss against his collarbone tells Vincent that Cloud understands he has chosen to never go back to the basement or the memories, that he’s chosen something else even if he doesn’t know how to say it yet. They sleep peacefully there, wrapped up in each other and the knowledge what they have isn’t going to end now that the world is saved.__

____

Tifa teases them both come morning, and Barrett almost drops a crate when Vincent smiles in response.

____

The two of them soon move to their own place on the edge of Edge, where they don’t feel trapped and the crowds don’t exist. Cloud buys a king-sized steel bed frame and makes a canopy for it; he hangs great big curtains that block out the light and gets a mattress that doesn’t dip under his weight and roll Vincent on top of him. They go hunting through the ruins together for salvaged metal, and Cloud builds while Vincent takes odd jobs to get money for everything they can’t make themselves.

____

It takes a few weeks before they can really live there in the home they’ve made, but finally the day comes where Cloud is putting the last of the groceries into the fridge with a smile as Vincent puts up the framed photo Tifa gave them for a housewarming gift. It’s them and all their friends, standing with their backs to the mountains so the destruction of the city isn’t in the picture. They’re well rested for the first time in months, grief and exhaustion no longer shadowing their eyes as they jostle for room in the shot.

____

“Do we need anything else?” Cloud asks, leaning against the doorframe, and Vincent knows they don’t.

____

He smiles as he lets the frame settle against the wall, before turning to face his partner. They have food, a home, friends, and each other. But even if it’s selfish, there is one thing he’d like all the same.

____

“A cat,” Vincent says simply, and Cloud laughs.

____

_The next day Cloud comes home with a little black runt with big green eyes that Vincent tries to name Nibel, but it’s not even nightfall before they’re calling it Nibbler instead. When Vincent wakes the next morning to black fur at his hip and blond hair over his chest, the little part of his heart that woke up one day long ago swells like it could burst._

____

_And it never, ever goes to sleep again._

____

**Author's Note:**

> (I'm a few years late to the rarepair party, but maybe the remake will enliven things when it comes out. I ended up very fond of these two, whether as friends or romantic partners, and a little idea about Vincent and cats turned into this.)


End file.
